It’s Time to Offer Russia an Offramp. China Can Help With That.

Casualties are mounting in Ukraine. Bombs continue to fall. More than 2 million refugees have fled the fighting.

Vladimir Putin seems to have assumed he could get a swift victory, underestimating the fierce resistance from Ukraine. Two weeks in, Russia is intensifying its assault on Ukraine, and Western nations in turn are intensifying their financial and economic punishments against Russia, including by triggering the financial “nuclear option” — banning some Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin has put his actual nuclear forces on high alert.

We are now in an escalatory spiral. Mounting pressure on Mr. Putin will likely make the situation more dangerous as Russia’s leader feels pushed to take increasingly extreme measures — such as what we’ve seen in the past few days with the Russian army’s siege tactics and attacks on civilian areas.